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THE response of local authorities in dealing with floods that hit Ennis in 2009 was highlighted at a major United Nations conference last month.

A delegation from Ennis Town Council recently returned from the 2011 World Cities Scientific Development Forum held in Chengdu China. The Ennis delegation had been invited by its sister city in Phoenix, Arizona, to attend the Forum. The theme for the Forum was ‘Development and Cooperation among Cities: Building Liveable Cities for Humanity’. 33 countries and 14 different organisations were represented at the Forum.

Councillor Mary Howard (FG) deputising for the Mayor of Ennis and Gerard Dollard, Ennis Town Manager presented to the conference on the Irish approach to major emergency management, with particular reference to recent severe weather crises in Ennis. The opportunity was taken to highlight proposals included in the Clare County Development Plan for the development of a Global Logistics Centre at Shannon International Airport and the contribution such a centre could make to addressing aid issues that arise in major disasters.

Cllr Howard stated, “It was a great honour for Ennis to be asked to attend such a forum and to have an opportunity to contribute to the overall debate for disaster risk reduction. There were over 200 delegates from around the world at the conference and it was very beneficial to be able to present the Irish approach and in particular highlight the strategic location of Shannon Airport in terms of the role it could play in humanitarian aid following major disasters and crises. We were approached after our presentation by a number of parties, including representatives of the UNESCO Global Task Force for Building Codes and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) regarding the potential of the Shannon proposal. We will be following up the comments made to see how Shannon can be part of emerging plans for dealing with major global crises and disasters.”

Mr Dollard commented, “We were very impressed with the range of participants attending from all over the world. The issues faced by Ennis are no different to the issues being faced by countries around the world. The case for Shannon was strongly made and is boosted by the progress on the Lynx Cargo Project, the existence of US Customs and Border Protection facility, the 24/7 nature of the airport, use of the longest runway in Europe and the availability of a substantial land bank. These were all highlighted as being particularly relevant to facilitating a global hub for humanitarian aid.”

The travel and accommodation costs of the Ennis delegation were met by the organisers of the Forum.

A NEW masterplan for the development and safeguarding of services at Shannon Airport is set to be unveiled in September, just ahead of the 75year anniversary of when the first sod was turned to start the construction of Ireland’s first transatlantic gateway.

In consultation with Dublin Airport Authority chiefs, the Shannon Airport Authority are now believed to be putting the finishing touches to the blueprint that will be expected to chart a new future for the former hub of the aviation world over the next decade.

The plan’s publication will be the culmination of a consultation process between the Dublin Airport Authority, SAA and the public, by way of taking submissions on the airport’s future from key partners in the wider airport infrastructure and catchment area, before finalising the key points of concern and concentration in Shannon’s drive to usher in a new era of profitablity.

“A key element in drafting such a plan is to elicit the opinions of airport stakeholders,” a Shannon spokesper- son revealed in April, after business groups in the mid-west region were invited to a think-tank aimed at coming up with new ideas for the airport going forward.

The masterplan is being formulated against a backdrop of figures contained in the recently released Dublin Airport Authority annual report, which revealed that passenger numbers through Shannon in 2010 dropped by one million over the previous year.

This drop represented a 37 percent decline in passenger traffic, a 12-year low at Shannon.

Only 1,755, 885 passengers used Shannon in 2010, a figure that’s now lower than 1998 levels of 1,840,008 passengers when the airport was still reeling from the loss of its transatlantic gateway status in 1993.

The drastic fall-off in numbers, from 2,794,563 in 2009 represented the fourth year in a row that Shannon’s passenger count when into sharp decline.

Between 2004 and 2005 passenger numbers increased by a record 37.9 per cent as Shannon’s numbers grew to a record 3,639,046 from 2,395,116 over a two-year period.

It’s expected that the new blueprint will concentrate on stabilizing Shannon’s finances – rather that directly addressing the passenger decline with the transformation of Shannon into a worldwide cargo hub development seen as a potential saviour for the airport.

Into this category comes the Lynx Cargo trans-shipment facility, which is to be grant aided to the tune of € 6m by the DAA, while Shannon Development chairman, Dr Vincent Cunnane has said “the airport will not survive on passengers alone and needs a cargo hub”.

THE search for a missing east Clare man enters into its eighth day this morning, with friends and family joining Coast Guard and Garda search teams around the Cliffs of Moher area.

Tulla native Gerry Kelly is a regular visitor to the tourist attraction, where his car was discovered unattended last Monday evening. The 61-year-old was last seen on Tuesday, August 8. However, there have been a number of unconfirmed sightings of him in the Tulla area between then and August 15, when his car was discovered.

“The search is still ongoing and will be for the next number of days. We have been doing a protracted search of the area for the past week,” said Matty Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard.

“This man was a very regular visitor to the cliffs. He worked at the county council and a lot of his friends and family have been up in the area helping in the search. At the moment, the only real piece of information that we have is that his car was found at the cliffs.

“Our search is focusing on the Cliffs of Moher and Doolin area but I do know that friends, family and county council colleagues are searching in areas around Spanish Point and up as far as Fanore – all the different areas either side of Doolin.”

Mr Kelly, who is single, does not have his mobile phone with him which has made it difficult for gardaí to track his movements electronically. He is described as being five feet five inches tall with short brown hair, a round face and a ruddy complexion.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Gardaí in Killaloe at 061 620540 or Ennistymon at 065 7072180.

A CLARE third-level student will be used by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to contest a judicial review against changes made to the way in which third-level grants are calculated.

USI president Gary Redmond confirmed to The Clare People yesterday that the case of a north Clare student, Medb Hensey, will be used to challenge new Department of Education legislation which increases the distance from a university that a student can be considered “adjacent”.

Under the new rules, which come into effect this September, Medb’s grant will be significantly cut because, even though she lives outside Ballyvaughan, she is considered to live beside NUI, Galway. The case will appear in the high court on October 7.

“Medb is being used as part of this test case. We know this won’t help Medb or other students this year but it might help her, or other students in the same position, down the line.

“We did try to impress on the judge how important the timing of the case was, with students going back to college,” said Gary Redmond, President of the Union of the Student in Ireland.

“This has placed a lot of students in severe financial difficulty and I know that many students, especially from rural areas, may have difficulty going back to college.

“The rationale behind this is that public transport has improved but if you look at a situation like Medb’s, there is no way that she can get to college using public transport each day.”

Medb is planning to take up a year’s study abroad this September and, according to her mother Antoinette, they have managed to save enough money for Medb to study abroad this September.

“USI sent an engineer out to measure the distance and we are 39km from Galway by the shortest direct route,” she said.

“This won’t be of any benefit to Medb this year but we are hopeful that USI may win this case; we will have to wait and see.

“She is going to Malta anyway. We have both been working hard to ensure that we have enough to get her there. We were both determined that that would happen.”

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has directed that a man accused of the murder of a 21-year-old law student in Barefield in June be sent forward for trial at the Central Criminal Court.

At Ennis District Court yesterday, Garda Supt Peter Duff told the court that the DPP had issued directions in relation to the case of Joe Heffernan.

Mr Heffernan (31) with an address at Cappabeg, Barefield is accused of the murder of Eoin Ryan at Cappabeg, Barefield on June 7.

Supt Duff told the court that the DPP had directed trial on indictment to the charge of murder to the Central Criminal Court.

He said a book of evidence for the case would be ready by September 23. Supt Duff said Gardaí were seeking to remand the accused in custody to Ennis District Court on September 2. Solicitor John Casey consented to the application. The court heard that the accused is currently in custody.

CAR sales dropped in Clare during the summer months, but hopes are high that they will recover for the remaining four months of the year.

Overall, new car sales across the county increased by 5.2 per cent since the start of the year. Up to last Friday, there were 1,984 new cars registered in County Clare, compared with 1,886 during the same period last year.

The figures from www.motorcheck. ie show that while car sales increased in Clare in May and June, they decreased in July and August. The increase in May was 2.5 per cent; in June – when car sales surged prior to the end of the popular scrappage scheme – the increase was a massive 73.9 per cent; the decrease in July was 43.5 per cent, while the drop so far in August is along the lines of 90 per cent. There were 136 new cars sold during the first 19 days of August of last year, compared to just 14 this year.

The number of cars purchased in the ‘all cars’ category – which includes new and used cars – has increased by 3.3 per cent so far this year. However, there was a reduction of 77.1 per cent in this category so far this month. There was a decrease of 16.1 per cent in July; an increase of 62.1 per cent in June and an increase of one per cent in May.

In Clare, the Ford Focus is the most popular choice of car, followed by the Nissan Qashqai, the Ford Fiesta, the Volkswagen Golf, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Juke, Toyota Avensis and Volkswagen Passat.

Silver is the most popular colour of car, followed by black, grey, blue and red, in Clare.

Nationally, the number of cars sold in July decreased by 35 per cent, compared with July 2010. However, the figure for July 2010 included cars in the scrappage scheme, which came to an end in June of this year.

ROADSTONE has declined to comment on increasing speculation that they are about to re-open a quarry, formally operated by the Whelan Group, on the Lahinch Road in Ennis.

In a statement to The Clare People yesterday, a spokesperson that that Roadstone had no official comment to make on the situation, but said that they were aware of the growing speculation linking them and the Ennis quarry.

In December of 2010 the High Court made to wind up five companies in the Whelan Group after the company directors withdrew a petition for court protection. The Clare People understands that a number of people, who have been out of work since the operations ceased at the quarry, have been contacted in recent days about the possibility of returning to work, but it is unclear how many jobs will be reinstated and who will be operating the facility.

The Whelan’s Group employed 120 people in five separate companies when the winding up order was issued in December of last year and the company directors said at the time that they “profoundly regretted” any job losses that would come about as a result.

Clare Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway (FG) yesterday welcomed any increase in employment in the area and said that Roadstone would make a success of the quarry if a deal is completed.

“Roadstone are a company with a great track record and a massive amount of experience in this area and if a deal can be done I have no doubt that they will make a great success of the venture,” the Fine Gael senator said.

“Every job is an important job and that area was hit particularly badly with the closure of the quarry. I would welcome any move that would allow the people effected by this to get back to work.”

The Whelan’s Group is a familyowned company which has been in operation in Clare for the past 40 years.

CLARE is one of eight counties in the State to have experienced a drop in unemployment figures over the past year, a new statistic report on employment has revealed.

However, the drop of just 86 people who are claiming some sort of unemployment benefit has been attributed to an increase in those turning to emigration when finding themselves out of work.

The Central Statistics Office has confirmed that the numbers of people claiming unemployment benefit in the county has dropped from 10,796 in July last year to 10,708 12 months later.

But behind these figures, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people who are unemployed in the county over the past month – with the figure of 10,708 for the end of July representing an increase of 223 within a four-week period.

And the unemployment figures for the end of July represent the highest in the county since February of this year when the Live Register numbers in the county stood at 10,814.

Figures released by the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) show that for the first from February to May this year there was a progressive drop in the numbers of people on the Live Register.

Figures for January 2011 were 10,833, a jump of 264 on the previous month, but by May this had dropped by 547 to 10,286.

For the months of February, March, April and May, Live Register figures had decreased by 69, 191, 204 and 133 – a slide which represented an overall drop of five per cent.

The biggest drop experienced in the county over the past 12 months was experienced in September 2010, when Live Register numbers decreased by 681 from 10,720 to 10,117.

The INOU figures for the county show that there are nearly double the amount of men out of work when compared to women.

The figures, taken from Live Reg ister figures up until June of this year, have revealed that there are 6, 598 men without work, while the figure for women stands at 3887.

Clare is one of three west of Ireland counties to have experienced a drop in unemployment numbers in the last 12 months – the others are Galway (down 183) and Limerick (down 791).

ALMOST 20,000 Clare households could face the prospect of shelling out as much as € 300 each to have their septic tanks examined following the implementation of EU legislation which is likely to become law in Ireland this September.

The new law would require every septic tank in the county to be examined by Clare County Council to determine if the tank meets with the new EU guidelines. It is understood that this examination would be carried out at the expense of the landowner themselves.

Should the septic fail to meet the standards required, improvements costing up to an estimated € 7,000 would be required – again with the home-owner responsible for meeting the cost of upgrading or replacing the septic tank.

A spokesperson from Clare County Council told The Clare People last week that the local authority were not in a position to comment on the issue until legislation had been passed by Government.

The local authority’s Director of Services for the Environment, David Timlin, did confirm that the number of Clare houses affected could be as high as 19,000.

“Until such time as any such legislation is published, I am not in a position to comment on the kind of regulatory regime that may be put in place. I will need to see what exactly the local authority’s responsibilities would be,” he said. “There are about 19,000 single-house treatment systems in Clare, mainly septic tanks.”

North West Area MEP, Marian Harkins (IND) hosted a public meeting on the subject in Ennis last Friday. “There is a huge inequity in requiring rural householders to pay an as yet undisclosed fee to inspect septic tanks which, if found deficient, could involve subsequent and significant additional costs for them,” she said.

“Bearing in mind that billions of Euro of exchequer and EU funding have been provided to supply a completely free sewerage service to urban dwellers, the least that rural dwellers should have is equally free service.

“Rural dwellers provide their own sewerage treatment at their own expense, and repair it at no cost to the state or local authorities.

“It is regrettable that the two parties of government, Fine Gael and Labour, have decided that rural dwellers will pay while their urban counterparts will not.”